


Past, Present, Future

by synfy



Series: Entwined [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Baking, Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Light Angst, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26984494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synfy/pseuds/synfy
Summary: Patton takes Janus home- back to the village. A little interlude in between the events of Give And Take and The Calm.
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Entwined [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1379818
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Past, Present, Future

**Author's Note:**

> I know everyone is on a prinxiety kick right now thanks to the recent Sanders Asides, but uhhh I felt bad about not having updated anything in forever and I have been saying that I was waiting for Thomas to release new content before I updated. So, as promised, here y’all go.

It was very close to midnight when Patton finally made it back to the village with Janus. It had been a painfully long day, and he knew that he should have felt completely exhausted, but he didn’t. So much had happened, and some of it barely felt real.

The priest was dead, for starters. He was dead, and the villagers would have found the body by now. They’d blame it on the taily-po, which they’d probably blame on Virgil, but they wouldn’t have any real proof of that so nothing would come of it. They’d probably have some sort of funeral for the man, and he’d be the talk of the town for a while, but that would be the end of it. A major part of Patton’s life, one of the reasons he’d stayed in this hateful village with its hateful people, over with in a single day.

And the biggest lie of his life, he’d finally given up. He’d told Virgil, his brother, the person he loved most, about ability. It had taken most of a day to explain it all to Virgil, but one day of truth was nothing in comparison to two decades of lies.

Perhaps the biggest change, though, was the man who now sat across the table from him, whose ankle rested against his under the table. The man who’d walked beside him the entire way back to the village, who’d been wearing a heavy cloak to conceal his snake-like face, but who’d still clung close enough to let his fingers brush Patton’s with every step. The man who knew Patton better than anyone else could hope to.

The Voice.

Janus.

Janus had taken the cloak off and draped it over the back of the chair that he was sitting at. In the low candle light coming from the windowsill, his pupils were almost round and almost human looking. But the way that his scales caught the flickering light and his pointed ears were decidedly not human.

“Do I not look like you expected?” Janus spoke and Patton saw the flash of fangs in his mouth. It wasn’t the first time he’d spoken, but it still felt strange to hear him out loud. He sounded exactly the same as he always had, even with the slight lisp from his fangs. Patton had never really noticed the lisp until now.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what I expected.” Patton answered, truthfully. “Do I look like you expected? I suppose I probably do, since you’ve actually been able to see me in your visions.”

“Actually, I’ve never been able to see you in visions. So no, you don’t look at all how I expected. Then again, neither do I.” Janus held his hand up in front of his face and tilted it back and forth as if examining it. He then held it out for Patton to inspect.

Patton couldn’t see anything terribly unusual about his hand, aside from the much fainter, but still present scale pattern. “What is it?”

“It’s just… odd. To see my scales like this.” Janus ran his finger along the skin. “When I, well, went to sleep, they were only visible on my face. I don’t think I even had fangs like this yet.”

Patton frowned. “What does that mean?”

“Just that I’ve gotten older. They’re my adult markings. It makes sense, of course. I was rather young, I suppose, when I fell asleep. I knew that time was still passing, obviously, and I definitely _feel_ older than I did when I ran a- when I went to sleep. I guess I just never thought about my body as changing as well.” Janus suddenly met Patton’s eyes and leaned forward. “Little seer, tell me. How old do I look to you?”

Patton frowned, the nickname feeling strange to him, despite all the years of hearing it. “You do have my name, you know. You can use it. And, I don’t know? I guess you look about my age?”

He did, sort of. Or maybe Virgil’s age?

“So I am an adult, definitely, but on the young side. That- yes. That makes sense.” Janus frowned. “Ah. Is that why you decided to kiss me to wake me up? There were other ways you could have done it.”

Janus leaned back again as he spoke and the motion jostled his ankle against Patton’s. Patton suddenly became very aware of that point of contact between them and felt his face heat up.

“I- no?” His voice threatened to squeak and he cleared his throat. “Um, I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry, I won’t do it again.”

It really felt like a lie when he said it, but he didn’t know what else he would have said. He didn’t know why he’d done that, and he didn’t know why that felt like such a lie.

Janus tilted his head and studied Patton. “If that is what you wish. I think I liked it, though.”

Ok, their ankles touching was definitely too much for Patton. The squeaking of the chair when Patton stood up startled them both.

“I, um. I need to get to sleep. I have orders that need to be filled tomorrow. You should, too, I guess you can take the right side of the bed? It’s pretty big, or we can work something else out if you’re not comfortable with that-”

“Don’t worry about that, go sleep. I’m going to stay awake a while longer, I think. I’ve done my fair share of sleeping. I’ll come to bed later. Don’t worry, I won’t make a mess or leave the house.” Janus withdrew his foot. “Sleep well, Patton.”

Patton suddenly wished he’d just stuck with the nickname. Hearing his actual name in Janus’s voice was… a lot, actually.

“You too!” Patton retreated into the bedroom as quickly as he could. He shut the door softly behind him, then reconsidered, and opened it just a crack. He took off his trousers and shirt, exchanging them for a smaller, older pair that he slept in.

Before he actually got into bed, he chanced a glance back at Janus from the cracked door. Janus was still sitting at the table, running a finger absent-mindedly along his arm, staring at the candle in the closed bakery window. His expression was relaxed and blank, but Patton thought he could see some loneliness in it.

Patton turned away and climbed into bed. He briefly considered sorting out the tangle of feelings that was currently twisting fancy knots into his gut, but decided to leave that for some other time. He did move himself to the left side of the bed, however. Just in case Janus changed his mind.

His dreams were dark, and full of blood and bricks and the laughter of the priest.

The next morning, Patton woke from a nightmare to find he wasn’t alone in the bed. Janus was next to him or, rather, around him. Their legs were tangled together, twisted up in the blankets, and Janus’s head was pressed to his back. Patton pulled himself upright as gently as he could to avoid stirring his companion and examined him.

Janus didn’t look any softer or more relaxed while he was asleep. Instead, he had deep furrows in his brow, and his hands were clenched around a small ball of the blanket that he’d twisted up in front of his chest. When Patton pulled away from him and got out of bed, Janus let out a small hiss and began to stir.

“Shhh, you can go back to sleep. I’m just getting up to start the oven.” Patton said gently, reaching down to tuck a loose strand of hair back into place.

Janus made another quiet noise and shuffled his way into the warm spot that Patton had just left. Patton tried not to think too much about why that made him smile.

He got dressed and stoked the fire back up in his oven, then went about checking the orders for the day. He had a couple loaves to make, and a couple batches of jelly rolls, and a few more loaves to start for the next day. He’d also make a couple of meat pies for himself and Janus to eat over the next few days. He started on the loaves first, and easily lost himself in the routine of the day.

A little before noon, when Patton was kneading dough on the counter across from the oven, Janus shuffled out, still wrapped in the blanket, and wordlessly leaned against Patton’s back.

“Um, good morning? Did you sleep well?” Patton asked, amused.

Janus dropped his head against Patton’s back. “Mhmm. Warm.”

He sounded barely half-awake.

“Yeah, you’re right in front of the oven right now.” Patton started shaping the loaf and reached for a banneton. “I’m going to need to put this over next to the oven, so why don’t you go take a seat at the table.”

Janus groaned but he did shuffle over to the table and take a seat. Patton slid the loaf over next to the warming spot by the oven and grabbed the extra cup he’d made of roasted chicory and dandelion root tea to bring to Janus.

It took Janus a little while longer to wake up and regain his familiar composure, but Patton found himself really enjoying the day in a way he hadn’t in a long time. Even when Janus was still waking up, it was nice to simply have another presence in the room with him while he worked. Somehow, because it was Janus, it wasn’t weird.

He sang a few songs to himself as he worked, and Janus joined in with a quiet hum after a few verses. Later, Janus surprised him by mocking one of his more irritating customers after they left.

Patton found that talking to and being around Janus was actually effortless. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise, since they’d essentially been friends for most of his life, but it was better than he could have hoped. Janus knew how to read his mood from the tone of his voice, knew how to calm him down after aggressive customers. They knew each other’s sense of humor, and they’d been making fun of the other villagers in Patton’s visions for years already. Having him there, physically there, was actually amazing. It was the best part of his visions, all the time.

Although, having Janus around was a big change for his visions. With Janus now awake, Patton sometimes had to endure his them alone. Apparently, they could only talk to each other if they both had a vision at the same time. If Janus was asleep when a vision came, then they could talk like normal. If Janus was awake, Patton sometimes found himself a silent observer in his visions.

Janus had better control over when he had his visions than Patton did. He could choose to enter a vision a bit more freely, without having to force it, and share one of Patton’s visions with him if he felt like it. He didn’t always, which Patton understood. Visions were draining, he knew that. The few times where Janus chose to enter a vision with him while they were both awake, it would leave both of them completely exhausted. So, for the most part, Patton accepted that he would be alone in his waking visions.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Patton was used to dealing with the aftermath of his visions alone, waking up to find himself slumped on the kitchen floor or surrounded by dropped flour. Now, he would usually wake up to Janus holding him, or propping him up in a chair. And he did the same for Janus, whenever Janus had a vision. Admittedly, it was somewhat unnerving to see Janus’s eyes roll up into his head, but Patton figured he probably looked just as strange. Patton didn’t ask Janus about what he’d seen unless Janus offered the information first, and Janus did the same for him, despite their many years of sharing in Patton’s visions. They didn’t really talk about it, but Patton knew that Janus was just as grateful to have someone around to help him, who understood.

Overall, Patton found himself loving the routine they fell so easily into.

~*~

Over the next few days, Patton found that having Janus physically with him also presented new, unforeseen issues. Janus, it turned out, was rather clingy. When he wasn’t hiding out of sight from a customer, he was floating around Patton in the kitchen. He never sat still for very long, instead hovering in the kitchen to look over Patton’s shoulder at loaves or comment on uneven jelly rolls. He loved peering into the oven whenever Patton opened it, and seemed to take every opportunity to brush against Patton. He wasn’t in the way, not really, but he was almost constantly in contact with Patton in some small way. It was strange, but nice, and Patton found himself leaning in to those touches.

Since his mom had died and Virgil left, almost no one ever actually touched him. The older villagers still didn’t fully trust him, and the handful of children who didn’t know his history were largely kept well away from him. Conducting his business out of his kitchen window certainly didn’t help to close any distance between him and the town. Until now, Logan had been the only friend of Patton’s who’d lived in the town, and Logan wasn’t really one for casual contact. So, this whole thing with Janus was very much new to him.

Janus always initiated the touches. That was fine, really, since Janus gave them out pretty freely, but Patton kind of wished he had the courage to be the one to initiate sometimes. Janus seemed like he barely noticed it was happening and it would feel too deliberate if Patton tried to copy that. It would feel too much like it was starting to mean something. Every day, Janus’s words rang in Patton’s head over and over.

“ _I think I liked it, though.”_

Patton was used to letting his thoughts wander while he kneaded bread, and they’d all been drifting to that subject for the past few days. Why had he kissed Janus? He’d wanted to, apparently, but when had he decided on that? It had felt right in the moment, but that didn’t really give any answers. He’d never had the desire to kiss someone before. Was that actually the weird part?

His mom hadn’t either, apparently. Patton had never seen her show interest in anyone in the village, and obviously she hadn’t had any interest in anyone like _that_ before Virgil and Patton were born. Virgil clearly did have interest in _that_ , though. Patton had _seen_ him with other boys back when Virgil was still in school, kissing and exchanging looks in that unsubtle, clumsy way of teenagers. He’d never really understood how Virgil could even consider doing that with any of the villagers, but at that time Virgil hadn’t known how awful most of them were. On the other hand, he knew how Virgil and Roman felt about each other, and that made more sense to Patton.

Was what Virgil felt for Roman the same thing that he felt for Janus? He honestly couldn’t say. Maybe?

Patton was jolted out of his musing by the awareness of a growing pain in his head. He barely had a moment to say Janus’s name before he felt his consciousness slip into a vision.

~*~

_Logan was laying on his bed, his glasses off and his hair mussed from sleep. The window above him was dark, but the first hints of dawn were visible in the sky beyond. There were bubbling glass jars sitting on a desk across the room from the bed. One of them in particular, a jar with reddish tinted liquid in it and what looked to be a few handfuls of berries, had a tube of some sort affixed to the top by wax, and the other end of the tube in a small container of water. The tube was putting out an almost constant stream of bubbles._

_From the thin wooden stairs that lead up to the second floor of the tower, there was a small commotion and the sound of rapid, clumsy steps. Patton watched, half-expecting the worst, but what eventually came into view was just a small, floppy ,furred thing. A puppy, he realised._

_The puppy ran right at Logan’s bed, attempted to jump up onto the bed, failed, and tried again. The small collision woke up the healer, though. Logan sat up and fumbled for his glasses unhurriedly, then looked down at the dog._

_Just as the puppy was about to make another doomed bid for the bed, Logan reached down and scooped up the small animal. The dog immediately switched to trying to lick every available patch of skin, and Logan let out a soft laugh._

“ _Alright, Aristotle. Let’s go out.”_

_~*~_

The vision fell away and Patton had the uncomfortable feeling of his eyes sliding back to their normal position behind his lids. There were arms around him, holding him up against a body. Patton shifted and brought a hand up to rub at his face, and the arms loosened a bit.

“Are you back already?” Janus’s voice was soft and so very close.

Patton opened his eyes to see that he was almost exactly where he’d been, standing at the counter in front of some bread dough. Janus’s arms were around his waist, holding him slumped against the fae.

He turned his head to the side, and found slit-pupil gold eyes looking back at him. “Yeah, it was a short vision. It seems I’m not meant to have a dog after all. Logan is.”

“What?” Janus frowned in confusion. His mouth was directly next to Patton’s ear.

Patton shifted his weight so he wasn’t fully leaning on Janus but didn’t do anything to move out of Janus’s arms. “Roman only wanted to give two of his puppies away, trying to build something of a pack to help him hunt. Virgil was to get one, and I was to get another. But my vision showed Logan with a dog- with the one I had intended to pick for myself.”

“I suppose it’s for the best.” He sighed. He wasn’t sure he was in the best position to have another creature to take care of right now, regardless. Janus rested his chin on Patton’s shoulder.

“There will be others, I’m sure.” He said softly.

Patton turned his head to look at Janus again. This close together, it was impossible for him to see all of Janus’s face clearly. The thoughts he’d been having before his vision swam through his mind again. They weren’t pressing, though. They didn’t fill him with anxiety like he half expected them to.

“Can I kiss you again?” The words just kind of came out of him.

Janus looked at him and Patton thought he could see the edge of his mouth curl up. “Yes.”

Patton wasn’t really sure which one of them moved, or if they both did, but somehow they ended up with their chests pressed together, and then they were kissing.

It was a little weird at first, a bit awkward. Then Janus tilted his head slightly, and they slid into a rhythm.

 _Oh,_ Patton thought. _This is nice._

Janus’s lips parted slightly and Patton couldn’t stop himself from sucking Janus’s lower lip into his mouth. He heard his breath hitch and then felt Janus’s arm remove itself out from around his waist. Janus’s hand came up to his chest, then slid up his neck to cup his jaw.

Patton’s hand tightened on the fabric over Janus’s shoulder and he felt the smooth surface of a fang when Janus parted his lips more. His fangs twitched against the roof of his mouth with every movement of his jaw, but they didn’t swing down. He felt Janus chuckle a little and the fae pulled away from him.

Before he could complain, Janus started kissing down the side of his neck, occasionally nipping slightly with his normal teeth and, _oh_ , now Patton could understand why people did that. A tiny moan inadvertently slipped free, but Janus only seemed pleased by that.

The hand still on Patton’s back dipped lower and he felt fingers trace across the exposed skin where his shirt had gotten pushed up. It felt appropriate now, in a way it hadn’t before, to relax into that contact, and Patton ran his fingers through Janus’s hair in answer.

Janus detached from his neck and their lips met again. Janus’s hand crept further up the back of Patton’s shirt, his hand now splayed out wide across his spine. Patton unclenched his hand from the shoulder of Janus’s shirt and began to stroke the skin along his collar, then along his shoulder. The hand on his jaw tightened a little and Janus kissed him with a sudden ferocity for a moment before he pulled back, just barely.

“Pat.”

Patton opened his eyes- when had he closed them? And looked at Janus. They were still so close that it seemed like he only had one large gold eye.

“Yes?” Patton had never heard his own voice sound like this before. It was lower than usual, breathless and rough.

“How far do you want this to go?” Janus asked, and he sounded quite similar to Patton.

It occurred to Patton then that he was hard. And Janus was, too. There was very little hiding, in their current positions, pressed together in his kitchen.

“Right now, or in general?”

“Either.”

Patton thought for a moment. “How much do you want?”

Janus was quiet for a moment, then he leaned back. Not enough that either of them were forced to loosen their grip on each other, but enough that Patton could see his face clearly. “I want anything and everything you want to give me. In the present, in the past, and in the future.”

Past, present, and future, were all such relative words for the two of them, in a way that they weren’t for other people. They were subject to change at any moment, past and present interchangeable for Janus in the same way present and future were for Patton. In Patton’s past, he’d given Janus everything he could, though it had only been company. He’d taken everything Janus could offer, though that had also only been company. They could both give more now, and take more.

Patton looked at Janus, at the Voice, at the man- the fae- that knew him better than any other being alive.

“You can have it. Everything. In the present, in the past, and in our future.” He said simply, and pulled Janus back in.

[ Next Chapter (Alternate Order) -> ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23978038/chapters/57675028)

**Author's Note:**

> *writes romance but like in a very aro sort of way* Anyway, I was gonna make this explicit but then I decided that I didn’t feel like it and I am trying to work on just not doing things that I don’t want to do so. There’s a fade to black instead and I added plot foreshadowing/fae lore to make up for it. I did make a post about more fae lore stuff over on the tumblr for this (sanders-sides-entwined-au.tumblr.com), so go check that out if you want to know more.


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